Voltage regulators are widely used in modern electronic systems for a variety of applications such as computing (server and mobile) and POLs (Point-of-Load Systems) for telecommunications because of their high efficiency and small amount of area/volume consumed by such converters. Widely accepted voltage regulator topologies include buck, boost, buck-boost, forward, flyback, half-bridge, full-bridge, and SEPIC topologies. Multiphase buck converters are particularly well suited for providing high current at low voltages needed by high-performance integrated circuits such as microprocessors, graphics processors, and network processors. Buck converters are implemented with active components such as a pulse width modulation (PWM) controller IC (integrated circuit), driver circuitry, one or more phases including power MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors), and passive components such as inductors, transformers or coupled inductors, capacitors, and resistors. Multiple phases (power stages) can be connected in parallel to the load through respective inductors to meet high output current requirements.
Power supply requirements for electronic systems are complex, with many different power supply rails (output voltages) generated for different requirements such as voltage, current, start-up, etc. in typical multi-component boards. POL regulators are an efficient way of distributing power, allowing the voltage supply to be generated in close proximity to the load. Digital voltage regulators are becoming widely accepted for POLs, offering flexibility to implement a diverse set of output requirements with good performance and a rich set of features. Digital voltage regulators typically rely on a stored configuration or program, which implements the design features required of each rail (output voltage). Management of digital voltage regulator controllers is a significant issue because there is little or no physical identification indicating which component is associated with which rail.
In one conventional approach, configuration information associated with the location of a digital voltage regulator controller on a board is provided by pin programming the controller with the configuration information through external resistors. However this approach requires a large set of external components to support a wide array of configuration options, increasing board size and cost. Another conventional technique involves implementing part management of digital voltage regulator controllers with different stored configurations. This approach requires a costly and complex part management process, and increases the risk for misconfigured components. In another conventional technique, digital voltage regulator controller configuration information is downloaded from a bus master during initialization. This approach requires time to perform the download. In each case, it is a challenge to rework or replace bad controllers on a board.